The Sight (8 page)

“Very possible,” Liam said.

Burke made a note of the sign's location on a scrap of paper stuck beneath the sunshade. “Let's keep moving,” he said, flipping up the shade and putting the jeep in gear again.

We moved down the street, the sign growing smaller behind us, but still big in our minds.

—

Burke pulled the jeep in front of a simple, white church,
APOSTLES
the only word that remained on the peeling wooden sign in the small yard in front of it. The white clapboard building, situated in Freret, was small and narrow, with a door between two windows on the front. A steeple reached into the sky above the arched doorway.

“Interesting choice,” Liam said as we headed up the sidewalk.

“It's an historic property,” Burke explained. “The building's on the National Register, so the state won't touch it. The feds don't have money to deal with all the abandoned buildings under their authority, which makes it a political no-man's land.” His tone softened. “And there aren't enough people in the neighborhood to use it.”

The war had treated every neighborhood differently. Battles had striped devastation into the Garden District, leaving blackened blocks beside pristine ones. The Lower Ninth, so damaged by the
storm surge from Hurricane Katrina, had been mostly spared, probably because there weren't as many houses there.

Freret had been terrorized and picked apart by a group of Paras who'd nested nearby during the war. A group of neighbors on a nighttime patrol had been slaughtered, and the neighborhood had been mostly abandoned after the attack. Who could blame them?

“We've been watching it for a while,” Burke said, “just to make sure we'd have the place to ourselves. Helps that the church is in a neighborhood, off the main roads.”

Burke rapped on the front door. Seconds later, the locks snapped. A curvy woman with pale skin and dark hair opened it. She wore cropped black pants and a short-sleeved sweater, her hair curled into soft waves around her face, tortoiseshell glasses perched on her nose.

This was Darby Craig, a former scientist who'd been kicked out of her research unit when she learned the truth about Paranormals.

“Hey, Claire, Liam. Welcome to the new Delta HQ.” She stood aside so we could enter.

The door opened into a small, empty foyer, and a double doorway leading into the chapel. It was a space my father would have appreciated—antique in the extreme, with rough-hewn wooden floors and bare beams across the steeply pitched ceiling. There were marks on the floor where benches had once provided seating for congregants, but they were gone now. Probably used for kindling during the war, when magic sent cold snaps through New Orleans with chilling regularity.

An enormous stained glass window spilled light across the other end of the room. In front if it, wings outstretched, stood an angel. Malachi turned, his wings folding behind him with the soft
whoosh
of moving feathers before disappearing completely.

“As you can see,” Darby said, closing the door behind us, “the place
was mostly gutted, but there's a receiving room in the back and a small office.” She reached us in the middle of the aisle, smiled. “There's a rookery in the steeple. The bell's gone—probably melted down for weapons during the war. Pigeons took over the space, and we've started training ours to roost here. That's one of the reasons why we picked it. Oh, and there's this.”

She walked to the low stage at the front of the church, knelt down, and pressed her fingertips to the wood. A panel of the floor popped up beneath her hands.

“What is that?” Liam asked, moving closer.

“Trapdoor,” she said, pulling the panel up, which brought the scent of damp earth into the room. “Leads down to the crawl space. We're guessing it was used during Prohibition given the age of the church. And during the war,” she added, her expression sobering as she dropped the door again and rose. “We found some empty soup cans down there, water bottles, that kind of thing. Folks probably hid during air raids.”

Paranormals with wings didn't need electricity to fly above the Zone, which made the peal of air raid sirens all too common during the war.

“There was an office in the refinery above the factory floor,” Darby continued, glancing at me and Liam. “I don't think you ever saw it,” she added, and we shook our heads. “Anyway, we kept basic supplies there—food, water, flashlights, batteries, a small genny. We moved them into the crawl space last week.”

Liam looked up. “Good to know we have it, if we need it.”

“Wanna see the back?” Darby asked, and Liam and Burke agreed, followed her through a narrow paneled door on the right-hand side of the stage.

While they walked to the back of the church, I stayed behind, met Malachi's gaze. He'd been standing on the other side of the stage,
arms crossed, his gaze intense on the stained glass, his thoughts partly hidden by the tousled curl that fell over one eye.

“And so we meet again,” I said.

“And I still have no coffee.”

I smiled, appreciating the humor. “I won't hold that against you. We got an update from Gunnar.”

He nodded, and we stood there awkwardly for a moment. I still wasn't entirely sure what to talk to him about. There was something very formal about him—maybe because he'd been a general in the Consularis army. “So, do you have any hobbies?”

His gaze slid slowly my way. “Hobbies?”

“I mean, what do you do when you aren't working with Delta, or handling Para issues, or, well, working out?” I added, considering his physique.

“I read.”

“Oh? What do you read?” I thought about
The Revolt of the Angels.
If the text hadn't been chopped out of it, I could have given it to Malachi.

“Military texts, primarily. Books on tactics and strategy.”

“Understandable,” I said. And when silence fell again, I was more than a little relieved that Darby, Burke, and Liam walked into the church again.

“And now that the tour's over,” Darby said, “let's get down to business.”

We gathered together, and Liam put his hands on his hips, gave his report.

“Four killed in the bombing by a group called Reveillon. Seven Reveillon members killed. The leader calls himself Ezekiel and contends the only way to fix the Zone is to rid the city of magic—Paranormals, Containment, and the works.”

“Imprisoning Paranormals isn't sufficient?” Malachi's voice was
tight with anger. If humans knew what he was—and had been able to catch him—he'd be in Devil's Isle with the rest of them.

“Apparently not,” Liam said, and reviewed what we'd learned about the group, the bombing, Containment's investigation.

“How many from the bombing are still on the loose?” Darby asked.

“Outside Devil's Isle,” Liam said, “unknown in numbers and spread, although a PCC convoy out of Pensacola was hit. Inside the gates, Containment thinks there are five fugitives.”

“Preparing for the next attack?” Burke asked. “Or planning a different one?”

“We don't know yet,” Liam said. “Containment has people searching the prison, and I understand they're warning the Paras.”

“There are too many places to hide,” Malachi said, walking to one of the church's side windows and staring pensively outside. “Paras will be watching, and they may very well report what they find. But the prison, the neighborhood, is enormous.”

Liam nodded. “I think Containment is aware of the scale of the problem. They're considering Reveillon an armed militia.”

Malachi turned back. “Good. I'm glad they recognize the severity.” He paused, seeming to choose his words. “There are clearly humans who, like yourselves, are sympathetic to our situation, our circumstances. But not all feel that way. Frankly, I wasn't certain they'd take the threat with enough seriousness.”

“They're after Paranormals, so who cares?” I asked.

“Exactly.”

“If Ezekiel had wanted Containment to be lackadaisical about the threat,” Burke said, “he picked exactly the wrong way to do it. He killed humans, soldiers, families. That guaranteed Containment's involvement and attention.”

“Agreed,” Liam said. “What's our response?”

“There are Delta members outside New Orleans,” Malachi said. “Paranormals, primarily. Not many, but enough to gather intelligence about Reveillon's activities outside the city.”

“I'll assist with that,” Burke said. “Check in with the caravans, our suppliers, see what they can tell us.”

Malachi nodded. “I can help search inside the city, and we'll get the information to Burke or to you,” he said, looking at me and Liam. “You can get it to Gunnar?”

“We can,” I said.

“Containment issued a bounty for Reveillon members,” Liam said. “I'll be working that.” He glanced at me. “With Claire, as time and patience permit.”

“I do find patience is required,” Malachi said.

I gave them haughty looks. “I assume you're both referring to my needing patience to deal with you.”

Beside me, Darby worked to bite back a smile. “And speaking of things requiring patience, I'm working on the slower side of things. I've managed to find a place—a former biotech building near the airport—that still has some pretty good supplies in it.”

“We're helping her set up a lab,” Burke said, smiling at Darby. “She might as well be using all those letters behind her name.”

“Damn right,” Darby said.

“What will you be working on?” I asked.

“Soil samples,” she said. “I want to figure out a way to reverse the effect of magic, to make it usable again.”

“That would change life in the Zone,” Liam said, obviously awed.

“Yeah, if I can experiment without running afoul of Containment, actually get it to work, figure out a way to scale it up if it does, and get Containment to buy into it.” She smiled. “That's why I said it would require patience.”

We'd covered New Orleans, the Zone, and the soil. But that left one big gap in the plan.

“If this gets worse,” I said, “it's going to get worse for the Paras inside Devil's Isle first. They aren't allowed to have weapons, they can't use their magic, they can't leave, and from what Lizzie tells me, they have trouble getting basics from Containment. So how do we help them?”

Malachi smiled knowingly. “Instead of asking me, and presuming I can speak on behalf of a thousand very different people, why don't you ask them?”

I did not have a good response to that. “Point taken,” I said, and Malachi nodded. I guessed I'd be going back to Devil's Isle. Maybe Lizzie or Mos could help with the introductions.

Before we could discuss it further, the door opened with a slow creak, and we all turned toward it, hands and bodies ready for trouble.

And trouble walked right in.

G
avin Quinn, Liam's younger brother, was just as tall, just as dark-haired, and just as blue-eyed. His body had been honed differently; he was finer-boned and leaner than Liam, but no less handsome. And like his brother, he knew it.

Gavin exuded that confidence despite the black eye, the cut lip, the faint bruising around his jaw. His heather gray T-shirt and jeans were dotted with blood and smeared with what I hoped was mud.

“What the hell happened to you?” Liam asked.

Gavin glanced at his brother. “Work.”

“And yet you're alone,” Malachi said, and he didn't seem happy about it.

“Give it a minute,” Gavin said, walking forward. “She's probably putting her face on.”

The door opened again, and a woman—tall and willowy, with tan skin and coal black hair, walked in. She wore a red tank top and a long skirt, her long hair pulled into a braid that rested on her left shoulder. Her eyes were wide and dark, and there was a half-moon shadow beneath her left eye. And when she put her hands on her hips, her knuckles were split and bruised. She looked like a goddess, which might very well have been true if she was a Para.

Malachi smiled grimly. “Hello, Erida.”

It took her a moment to answer, and in that intervening silence, she looked at all of us. Her eyes widened slightly when she looked at me, but the apparent surprise faded before I could make anything of it. It was probably because I was the only human in the room who didn't have some previous connection to Delta, to Containment, or to Paras.

“You called?” she said, sliding her gaze to Malachi again, her voice fluidly accented.

“It's good to see you home again,” Malachi said.

“This isn't my home.”

“Neither was Lake Borgne,” Gavin said.

She cast a narrowed glance at him. “I was doing just fine until you showed up.”

“And now you'll do just fine here,” Malachi said.

Darby moved closer to me. “You think humans are dramatic?” she whispered. “You've never seen Paras bicker. Watching them is one of my favorite hobbies.”

I glanced at her, eyebrows lifted. “It's possible you need some healthier hobbies.”

“You wouldn't be wrong,” she said, but kept her gaze on the pair.

“It looks like you both worked out some aggression,” Malachi said, glancing between Erida and Gavin.

“Not enough of it,” she said, leveling a stare at Malachi. “Why am I here?”

“Excuse us for a moment,” he said, and drew her toward the back of the church, where the stained glass window spilled blue and red light over them.

While they chatted, and Burke and Darby did the same, Gavin walked over to us. “Claire, Liam. A pleasure to see you again.”

“And how was your vacation?” I asked pleasantly.

Gavin snorted, pointed to his face. “This sums it up pretty accurately.”

“Are you going to punch your brother hello?” I asked. That was how he'd done it the last time he reunited with Liam, and right in the middle of Royal Mercantile, giving me and my customers a pretty entertaining show.

He grinned, winced at the pain. “No.”

“I'd ask how you got the shiner,” Liam said, sliding his glance to Erida, “but I'm pretty sure I already know the answer.”

“It looks like you were pretty evenly matched,” I said. “I mean, given your injuries.”

“Agreed,” Liam said. “How'd you get her to come back?”

Gavin grinned, lighting dimples at the corners of his cheeks. “I'm very good at persuasion.”

“Bullshit,” Liam said through a cough.

“She's a goddess of war,” Gavin said quietly.

I looked at her again, the perfect posture, the slim but toned shoulders and arms. She looked to be lecturing Malachi, gesturing wildly, and not very happy about it.

“She wasn't fighting to avoid coming back,” Liam said. “She was fighting because that's what she does. She's one of Malachi's marshals—his soldiers. Let me guess,” he said. “She challenged you, and you stupidly accepted?”

“Hey, I'm still walking. She didn't break anything.” But he winced when he rolled his shoulder. “This is an old baseball injury.”

“Sure it is,” Liam said, and clapped him hard on the arm.

Gavin's face went a shade paler. “Asshole.”

“Back at you,” Liam said. “I'm glad you're back. We've got trouble.”

Gavin nodded. “I heard about the bombing. You remember that piece-of-shit marina on the north side of Lake Borgne?”

Liam closed his eyes and nodded, as if trying to remember. “Owned by an asshole with a domestic violence habit?”

Gavin nodded. “Beat the shit out of his wife in front of his kid and a Containment agent.” He looked at me. “Real class act.”

“Sounds like it.”

“The kid, Jasmine, is all grown up now,” Gavin said with a grin. “She runs the outfit. Pretty nice operation, actually.” He smiled. “Pretty nice Jasmine.”

Liam rolled his eyes. “I'm shocked you'd use a contract as an opportunity to get laid.”

“I'm no monk. And the point is, the marina's a way station. It's the only operating marina for twenty miles. They want gas, food, water, they go to her.” Gavin looked at me, grinned. “It's the power of the hot girl in retail.”

“My duct tape brings all the boys to the yard,” I said dryly, and both brothers smiled.

“I bet. As to the marina, you get shrimpers in and out, the occasional Para in and out. I used the marina to find Erida, and to find out about the bombing. Word had traveled from New Orleans.”

Malachi and Erida moved back to us.

“Erida,” Malachi said, “this is Liam Quinn and Claire Connolly.”

She looked at me, nodded. There was nothing unfriendly in the gesture, but nothing particularly friendly, either. Maybe she was the all-business type.

“We should stay in touch,” Malachi said. “Particularly now. Sharing information about Reveillon may be the only way to stop them.”

Liam nodded. “We'll let you know if Containment learns anything else. And send a pigeon if there's trouble.”

Malachi nodded. “We should assume Reveillon will attack again. We try to stop them if we can, and minimize casualties if we can't.”
He looked at me. “We'll train again,” he said, which made Liam shift ever so slightly beside me.

“When?” I asked, ignoring the movement.

He smiled lightly. “When I show up.”

I shouldn't have bothered asking.

“In that case, we're going to get back,” Liam said. “Claire needs to at least make an appearance at the store today, or people will start getting suspicious.”

“And we're taking you back to the store,” I said, pointing at Gavin. “We'll get you fixed up.”

“I'm fine,” he said, but winced and touched his lip. “But I wouldn't say no to a drink.”

—

Burke drove us back. Because Gavin called shotgun before Liam and me, we shared the bench. Gavin almost immediately dropped his head back and closed his eyes. He looked, now that I was looking for it, completely exhausted. Maybe finding Erida had been harder than he made it sound, notwithstanding the bumps and bruises.

We updated Gavin on the way back to the store; then he, Liam, and Burke talked through the ins and outs of Containment bounties, strategies for locating Reveillon members in a city as big as New Orleans—with a million places to hide.

“Thanks for the ride, Burke,” I said when he pulled up in front of Royal Mercantile. “You want to come in?”

He smiled, shook his head. “Thanks, but I need to get to the Cabildo. We've got shipments coming in and convoys heading out, so I need to get my people prepared.”

“Stay safe out there,” Liam said, tapping the side of the jeep.

Burke gave a salute and headed down Royal.

Gavin stretched his arms over his head, showing just enough abs to prove he and Liam also had good definition in common. “I am starving. Who's got eats?”

Liam looked at him. “Your apartment is down the street. Why don't you go get something?”

He grinned. “Because I haven't been home in two weeks, there was boudin in the fridge, and the power's probably gone off more than once.”

Liam and I both made faces of disgust.

“Your apartment is going to need fumigating,” I said.

“It's going to need an exorcism,” Gavin said, opening the door to Royal Mercantile, and holding it open so Liam and I could go inside. “Which is why I'd love to share a meal with two of my favorite people.”

I shook my head, glanced at Liam. “As his older brother, you should have done a better job teaching him how to lie.”

Liam snorted. “Consider who he just escorted to New Orleans. It's unlikely he'd take advice from me, no matter how good.”

Gavin turned, walked backward through the store. “Technically, she challenged me. No respectable man could say no to that.”

“Since when are you respectable?” Tadji said, stepping in front of us.

“Long time no see,” Gavin said, giving her a hug. He walked into the store, took a look around. “Claire, I like what you've done with the place.”

“That's all Tadji,” I said. The store looked the same as it had last night, which relieved me more than it should have. I guessed I still needed my comfort zone.

There weren't any customers in the store. “Slow day?” I asked Tadji.

“No,” she said with a smug smile. “Check the receipts.”

That was an offer I couldn't refuse, so I walked to the counter and flipped through the stack, calculating them mentally.

Then I stared at her. “Are you serious?”

She put a hand at her waist, made a bow. “I am good.”

“You are a freaking genius.” I held up a receipt. “You even sold two walking sticks!”

She nodded, her expression sobering. “People are nervous about the attack on Devil's Isle. I reminded folks they made good weapons in a pinch.”

“They'd be great weapons with a little training,” Gavin said, leaning on the counter.

“Maybe you could offer a class,” Liam said.

“Maybe I could.”

“Should I ask about . . . ?” Tadji began, and drew a circle in the air around Gavin's face.

“It speaks for itself,” Liam said. “He got himself beaten.”

“I chose to fight an incredibly sexy and skilled woman for the challenge of it.”

Tadji looked dubious. “And how did she fare?”

“Better than him,” Liam said, and pointed to the paper bag on the counter. “Let's move to other topics. I brought that in this morning.”

I hadn't noticed him bring it in, but I knew what bags like that usually held. “Is that what I think it is?”

He uncurled the top, pushed it toward me. Two rounds of crusty bread sat inside. Eleanor's bread, if I was any judge. The woman had an amazing hand with flour.

“Oh yes,” I said, realizing I hadn't eaten anything all day. “Please tell me this is lunch.”

“And that you're willing to share?” Tadji asked, hands pressed together in hope.

“Of course he is,” I answered for him. “I think I have some peanut butter. We could make a meal out of that.”

Liam made a sound of disgust. “This bread is not for peanut butter.”

“There's nothing wrong with peanut butter,” I said, heading to the kitchen. God knows I'd eaten and sold enough of it.

Liam followed me. “Bread this good deserves more than chewed-up peanuts.”

There was a lot of conviction in his voice. “That doesn't adequately capture the glory that is shelf-stable peanut butter. And you sound a little bitter.”

I walked to the refrigerator, pulled out the bottle of iced tea. Sniffed, just in case it had gone bad in the night. It smelled fine, which was our primary food safety test these days.

“I once spent two weeks on a run near Monroe in August, ate peanut butter every day,” Liam said. “Can't even look at it now.”

“I could eat it by the spoonful.”

“That's because you're a redhead.”

I gave him a look. “I'm pretty sure there's no correlation there.” I pulled open the nearest cabinet, took out a bulk jar of peanut butter, and scanned the shelves. “Now, what else do we have?”

Ever helpful, Liam opened another cabinet, produced a roll of duct tape. “Why is this in a kitchen cabinet?”

I took it from him, put it back in its spot, closed the cabinet again. “It's in every room in the building, as it should be. Duct tape cures all ills.” I found a jar of anchovies, held it out.

Liam looked absolutely disgusted. His being naturally gorgeous, the expression still looked pretty good on him. “No.”

Frowning, I looked over packages of MREs, dried beans, rice, cornmeal. A slender jar of sun-dried tomatoes hiding in the back of the cabinet got a thumbs-up, so I put it with the pile. “Someday I'd like to have a big kitchen. All the bells and whistles.”

“Is that because you cook, or you want to have a pantry full of food?”

“Mostly the food.”

Liam could cook. We'd shared roasted chicken one night at his place in Devil's Isle.

“Feel free to take a look,” I said, and waved game-show-style to invite him to review our options.

He stepped in front of me, his big body leaving that cologne lingering behind him. His Henley was fitted enough that it snugged against the taut muscles of his back, then curved into a perfectly bitable ass. I wanted to put my hand in the hollow of his back, feel strength and muscle shift and contract beneath my fingers.

“Don't you think?” he said.

I blinked, realizing I hadn't even heard what he'd asked me, and yanked back my hand.

Liam glanced over his shoulder. “You okay?”

“Fine,” I said, turning to face the other side of the kitchen while my blush faded. “Just thinking about apples. I should have grabbed a few when I was in Algiers.” It was a cover, but it happened to be true. Next time Malachi and I practiced, maybe.